The invention relates to customized surgical fixtures.
Many types of surgical procedures rely on precisely guiding an instrument into the body. This is the case in stereotactic surgery in which a target point within a body, for example, within a brain, is identified in a three-dimensional scanned image of the body. A detailed survey of stereotactic surgery can be found in Textbook of Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery, P. L. Gildenberg and R. R. Tasker (eds.), McGraw-Hill, June 1997 (ISBN: 0070236046). In a typical approach to stereotactic surgery, a frame is attached to the body prior to scanning. After scanning, the target point in the body is identified in the scanned image with reference to the frame. Then, during surgery, an adjustable instrument guide is attached to the frame. The guide is adjusted to align with the target point. A related approach to stereotactic surgery is described in copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/063,658 filed Apr. 21, 1998, which is incorporated herein by reference. In that approach applied to brain surgery, an adjustable instrument guide is attached directly to the skull. Once attached, it is adjusted to align with the target point.
These previous approaches to stereotactic surgery require adjustment of an instrument guide in order that the instrument can be driven accurately to the target point within the body.